Fungal pathogens, especially most of the soil-borne, cause severe damage in productions. Most chemical fungicides used today are carcinogenic to humans and pollute our environments. The urgency of searching and developing safe, potent and bio-degradable fungicides for agriculture is apparent. Plant materials are natural sources for the antifungal compounds and a screening program has been established to search for the potential compounds.
Dragons's Blood is a commercially available resin, principly derived from the scales of fruit belonging to Daemonorops draco Blume (family Palmaceae). It has been used medicinally as a stimulant and astringent, especially in dentifrices and mouth washes. Also it strongly inhibited Lewis lung carcinoma (Tanka et. al, 1985).
Olaniyi et. al. (1973), Cardillo et. al. (1976), Agbakwuru and Whalley (1976) had worked with the separation, structural determination and synthesis of Dragon's Blood resin. Merlini and Nashini (1976) reported the resin in a rich source of some natural substances namly, flavans, biflavonoids, deoxyproanthocyanidins, triflavonoids, chalcones and terpenoids. Rao et. al. (1982) also found two compounds, dracorhodin and dracorubin from this plant and showed antimicrobial activity in vitro against Staphylocossus aureus and Mycobacterium smegmatis.